Sacrifice
by super sycoh
Summary: In order to save a world brought to ruins by Voldemort and his Death Eaters, Draco and Hermione pay the ultimate price for a second chance at lasting peace.


**Sacrifice**

Fire blazed through Diagon Alley, and screams punctuated the din of spells clashing and wrecking through flesh. A pair of lovers hid under a counter in a long abandoned store, the woman nursing a lethal flesh wound, the man clung to life by a mere thread. The woman, Hermione Granger, cast a spell to stop the gush of blood from the man's injuries before tending to her own. It was apparent that the blond haired man would not live to see the sunrise.

"Draco," she whispered. He replied with a labored sigh, and his eyes struggled to focus on his wife's face. Tears escaped Hermione's eyes, but she made no move to wipe them away.

"I think I'll have to be more careful next time," said Draco, reaching up to touch her face. The words brought more tears to Hermione's eyes, and she managed a half laugh at the situation they now found themselves in.

Eight years they've been fighting against the returned terror that was Voldemort and his army of Death Eaters. Hermione could still remember the fateful night when Harry Potter recounted the madman's return, and the slaughter of innocents began anew. It was the same night she and Draco found solace in one another's company; more importantly, it was their point of no return.

The pair fell into an unusual kind of love slowly, and they loved one another deeply. The smartest brains Hogwarts had to offer, and the sharpest wits, the lovers were a great boon to The Order of the Phoenix. Hermione held her ground when she announced their friendship to Harry and Ron, and in time helped others see in Draco what she knew in her heart to be absolute fact. She made others see Draco as just another one of them, a scared child thrust into the front lines by the sins of the past, and helped him win the trust of the most vocal of protestors against his membership into the order. She rescued him from a dark path, and he gave himself to her in return.

Through the remainder of their days at Hogwarts the two became crucial to sabotaging Death Eater plans, they innovated on many elementary spells so they could accomplish more than their intended purpose for the younger and inexperienced among their ranks, and they improved upon potions for maximum efficiency and duration. In no time at all Hermione and Draco became a force to be reckoned with in the fight against Voldemort. They married before their seventh year and set out on the long trek of locating and destroying the remaining Hocruxes with Harry and Ron. It was no easy journey for the group, tensions rose and fell, friendships were tested and proven, and in the end their efforts fell short of success. Dark days became months, and then years.

Now four years since The Battle of Hogwarts, Hermione and Draco found themselves broken and bloodied hiding inside of a dilapidated store. Draco coughed and groaned in pain. Hermione suppressed her emotions and drew herself out of her memories to look on her husband.

"I wont lose you," Hermione said while pushing Draco's fringe out of his eyes, "I can't."

Draco held her hand and brought it to his mouth to kiss.

"You have to be strong now, my love," Draco said hoarsely, "our people will need a leader when this mess is over." He winced in pain as he finished his sentence. Tears came freely from Hermione's eyes, and she held onto his hand even tighter.

"This life is no good to me if you can't stay in it," Hermione sobbed. Her mind raced through every kiss and every tender moment she ever shared with Draco, she simply refused a reality in which Draco Malfoy was taken from her world.

A loud CRACK came from outside, and Hermione and Draco knew the fighting was catching up to them. Their hiding place groaned from the impact of the magical blast, their time was running out.

Draco coughed and although his breathing became more labored by the second he continued to speak, "Should've chosen him instead."

The "him" implied was left un-named between them. Hermione shook her head in response.

"I'd rather die tonight tearing a hole in the world as big as the one you will leave in my heart if I lose you right here and now," she hissed. Draco believed her, his wife was as fiercely loyal as any Gryffindor to come from Hogwarts, and he didn't doubt for a second the kind of mayhem she could wrought upon her enemies as a heartbroken witch of the highest caliber.

"Do you remember—" he paused to gasp in pain, "remember that book we pieced together from that old library in Bath?"

"The Arcana?" she replied.

The old tome from centuries ago contained spells that hadn't been used since the time of Merlin and Morgana; they had spent the better part of a month carefully restoring it to a readable condition hoping to find something that could help their cause. Hermione dismissed it as a lost cause, but Draco had continued on the task without her for some time after. He hadn't spoken about whether or not he found anything of use, and it baffled Hermione now that he would bring it up.

"Get me to the door, love," he said. He looked grim and determined. Hermione followed his instruction, and pulled him to the door at the back of the shop that led to the stock room. "Give me your hand," and Hermione obliged, holding her hand to him, and with surprising quickness of a gravely injured man, he sliced her palm open with a piece of glass from the floor. He repeated the motion on his own hand and smeared his blood upon the doorknob, and he motioned for her to do the same.

"Draco, please tell me what you're doing," said Hermione.

"I'm saving us," he replied, and he drew his wand out and mustered the last of his strength to cast his secret spell.

"PORTALUM TEMPUS!"

The door smeared with their blood shook and then disintegrated into pure light. Hermione shielded her eyes, while Draco was working himself up onto his feet. Hermione immediately rose to hold him steady, feeling his energy drain as they stood in front of the door of blinding light that he had conjured.

"Hermione," Draco pulled on her, and she searched his face for an explanation. She would get no such answer, as he pulled her into a deep kiss, and they fell into the magic exit he had created for them.

"Rubico," Draco whispered as the light enveloped them in a warm cloud.

The next thing Hermione knew, she was falling onto the cold stone floor of Hogwarts. Not the Hogwarts that she knew that was laid to rubble and ash, but the pristine school of magic and learning of her teen years. They were on the bridge outside the castle; Hermione knew the place well because of the important life bond she had formed with Draco after The TriWizard Tournament in that very location.

Draco rolled onto his back and breathed freely. Hermione looked at him and saw that his injuries were gone, and realized that her own body bore none of the pain she had felt only moments before. She looked at her hands and they were smooth and un-calloused, young. She looked back to Draco and stifled a gasp. Before her was a younger version of her husband, no older than fifteen, and it dawned on her that she too now inhabited the body of her own fifteen year old self.

"What did you do," she said to Draco. She got to her feet and looked around her, it was dawn, and she was living the same day over again. "You . . . you took us back?"

"I didn't think it would work, I didn't know how far back in time we would end up," he replied. "The spell was vague, but I knew to remember it. I knew it would be useful somehow." Draco's spell had taken them back in time, to the end of their fourth year, to where it all began for the two of them. It was their point of no return.

"Draco do you know what this means?" said Hermione, "It means we can do it right this time. We can save so many lives, we can use our knowledge of the future to change the outcome of the war!" She turned to him exhilarated by the aspect of cutting down the years of fighting down to nothing, her heart raced at the possibility of winning against Voldemort and his lackeys right from the start.

"This is the moment where it all changed for us Hermione," said Draco, "I think we fell in love with each other this night, our hearts knew before our brains, of that much I'm sure." He was on his feet standing next to her, cupping her face tenderly before drawing his face down to hers for a kiss. "In that last life we were married, and we lost two babes before they were even born, we went through a lot of pain and heartache my love."

"I know, darling, we'll do it right this time," said Hermione, "You've given us that chance now don't you see?"

Draco's face was stony; it was the mask she hadn't seen since they were this age the first time around.

"The spell was a last ditch effort on my part Hermione," said Draco, "I didn't cast it to save anyone else but you. I cast it for selfish reasons. I did it to do right by you."

"What are you getting at," asked Hermione.

Draco took her into his arms and whispered into her ear, "I set you on the wrong path, Hermione. I sacrificed our previous lives where we loved and lived for each other, for a blank slate."

"NO!" Hermione pushed him away, "I refuse, Draco! You can't take those memories from me, they are ours, we made them together. I can't accept a life that robs me of you completely, over a life that lets me be with you for only a little while."

"It's too late," said Draco. "When you fall asleep that life, that hard life we had, it'll be a dream. You'll forget, wake up and dismiss it as such. The spell is crude in that way, it allows for the temporal displacement, but it takes payment in the form of our memories, all of our potential from that life taken back and repurposed for this new one."

"I would have rather died," said Hermione. She fell to her knees and started to weep. "The sacrifice is too much, Draco."

Her husband from another life kneeled down and kissed her temple, and took her hands into his in a way he'd done so many times before. The effects of the time spell would wash over them soon, compelling them to return to a bed to rest, but Draco was determined to spend as much time fighting against it to hold onto her for a little longer. The spell's ritual succeeded because their love was true and unwavering, much like the love that saved Harry Potter as a baby. It would never have worked if his intentions were nothing short of selfless, and wanting a second chance at a better life for Hermione even at the cost of his own future with her was enough. Their last moments together were painful and ripped through their hearts as they struggled to keep their hands interlocked all the way back to the doors leading inside of Hogwarts. When they were finally separated by the spell everything that followed became a blur.

In the years to come Hermione and Draco would go on to live their lives apart, never once having an opportunity to find love with each other again. Hermione dedicated her remaining years at Hogwarts to helping Harry defeat Voldemort, facing the mad witch Bellatrix Lestrange, and enduring the cruel loss of her peers in the deciding battle at Hogwarts that would end the war started by Tom Riddle. This new life would force Draco farther away from Hermione, and he would have to find his way to redemption without her. While many would live and be born because of their sacrifice, the tragedy of their story lay not in the fact that they paid an unfair price, but that the story of the love that made it possible became lost to the ether.


End file.
